The Advocate: State fails family farm in utility land grab

By Chris Churchill, The Advocate

Updated 9:29 am, Monday, July 29, 2013

Photo: SHAWN DOWD

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Three generations of the Krenzer family pose together at the Krenzer family farm Thursday, July 11, 2013, in Chili, N.Y. The Krenzer's are fighting the state and Rochester Gas and Electric over plans to build a substation and new tine towers on their farm land. Pictured are: Anna Krenzer, front row left, and husband Tom Krenzer, center in hat, joined by their daughter Susie Krenzer, front row center, her son Lucas Krenzer, 20, front row far right, and their son David Krenzer, second from left, and his wife Marie, second from right, and their sons Doug, 12, top right, and Matt, 10, top left. (Shawn Dowd/Democrat and Chronicle) less

Three generations of the Krenzer family pose together at the Krenzer family farm Thursday, July 11, 2013, in Chili, N.Y. The Krenzer's are fighting the state and Rochester Gas and Electric over plans to build ... more

Photo: SHAWN DOWD

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With Rochester Gas and Electric power lines looming behind him, David Krenzer harvests acres of wheat as he works the fields at the Krenzer family farm Thursday, July 11, 2013, in Chili, N.Y. The Krenzer's are fighting the state and RG&E over plans to build a substation and new tine towers on their farm land. (Shawn Dowd/Democrat and Chronicle) less

With Rochester Gas and Electric power lines looming behind him, David Krenzer harvests acres of wheat as he works the fields at the Krenzer family farm Thursday, July 11, 2013, in Chili, N.Y. The Krenzer's are ... more

Photo: SHAWN DOWD

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David Krenzer stops to unload his combine with a fresh load of wheat as he works the fields at the Krenzer family farm Thursday, July 11, 2013.in Chili, N.Y. The Krenzer's are fighting the state and Rochester Gas and Electric over plans to build a substation and new tine towers on their farm land. (Shawn Dowd/Democrat and Chronicle) less

David Krenzer stops to unload his combine with a fresh load of wheat as he works the fields at the Krenzer family farm Thursday, July 11, 2013.in Chili, N.Y. The Krenzer's are fighting the state and Rochester ... more

Photo: SHAWN DOWD

The Advocate: State fails family farm in utility land grab

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Albany

Marie and David Krenzer are fighting to save their farm.

The Krenzers aren't battling against the usual farm problems. It isn't the economy, competition or weather that worry them. Their problem is the Spanish company Iberdrola and a state regulatory process that treats land owners as an afterthought.

Here's the situation: Iberdrola wants to build a massive substation and more on the Krenzers' land in Chili, near Rochester, and the company spent 19 months winning the legal right to do so. But the Krensers say neither Iberdrola nor the state detailed the plan to them, even though it will involve acquiring family land by eminent domain.

"They're about to take their property," said David Dunning, the Chili supervisor, "and nobody bothered to tell them what they're doing or how they're going to do it. It reeks."

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The plan by Rochester Gas and Electric, an Iberdrola subsidiary, is part of the $250 million Rochester Area Reliability Project.

David and Marie Krenzer, the farm's fourth-generation operators, say they learned how the project would affect them just five months ago, in February.

At that time, according to the Krenzers, the family was told it was too late to dispute the project, because hearings had already been held. The substation and power lines that would zigzag through their property were all but a done deal.

Now, though, the Krenzers are fighting back — and asking the PSC to reopen the case. As planned, the substation and related development will affect about 675 acres of land collectively owned by the family, according to the Krenzers. At the least, they say, losing that much acreage will force them to relocate their base of operations from Chili.

Here's an important point: This isn't a NIMBY situation, because the Krenzers don't oppose a project that's necessary in an era of growing electricity demands. The family is only asking Iberdrola to move the substation to a nearby parcel where it would be less disruptive to their soy, corn and wheat farming.

"We rely on electricity just like our neighbors do," Marie Krenzer said. "But there's a way to fulfill the needs of the project without devastating the farm."

The Krenzers' neighbors have launched a letter-writing campaign to back the family. The New York Farm Bureau is on their side, too.

The Chili Town Board, meanwhile, initially backed the project, but has now unanimously retracted that support, even though the substation would mean about $750,000 in annual town property taxes.

Dunning said board members changed their minds after learning the precise project location. Even the town was kept in the dark by Iberdrola, said Dunning, who notes the plan would devastate one for-profit business for the benefit of another.

"We have a foreign interest that's going to tear apart a local farm, and we're going to let them do it," he said. "To me, that doesn't say much about us as New Yorkers."

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So far, Iberdrola hasn't blinked.

The company says it met its legal notification requirements by sending letters to the family, holding hearings and placing legal ads in a local paper. Iberdrola also says it made contact "many times" with Thomas Krenzer, who is David's 82-year-old father.

Iberdrola even says it shifted the position of the substation at the request of the elder Krenzer, who is retired from farming but owns some of the land used by David and Marie.

The Krenzers dispute the Iberdrola claim.

The family says David and Thomas met just once with Iberdrola, and say they were only told the company was considering a substation somewhere in the Chili area. The discussion was vague at best, the Krenzers say.

What we have here, then, are conflicting versions of events.

I've reviewed many of the documents filed with the PSC by Iberdrola, and I'll say this: The company offers little in the way of proof that it actually met with the Krenzers. There are no meeting notes or minutes, for example, and it's shocking how rarely the family is even mentioned in the thousands of pages of filings.

The documents also reveal a surprising misrepresentation by the state Department of Agriculture & Markets.

The department initially told the PSC that its staff "worked with the landowner" to lessen the impact on farmland. But now, after that claim was questioned by the Krenzers, it concedes it had no contact with the family and relied entirely on the utility for its belief that the Krenzers' supported the plan.

Did you catch that?

The agriculture department worked with Iberdrola, the big corporation, and not the farmers.

"That department is in place to help farmers in situations like this," Marie Krenzer said. "Something went terribly wrong here."